Building comparison
head to head
Akalabeth: World of DoomvsFire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is optimization, and it is a single point.
Akalabeth: World of Doom
Optimization · Systems & Chaos
A primitive dungeon crawl testing stat management against random rolls.
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Optimization · Pure Optimization
Remake of Gaiden with dual protagonists and explorable dungeons.
Akalabeth: World of Doom leans Optimization (Systems & Chaos); Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia leans Optimization (Pure Optimization).
Akalabeth: World of DoomFire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Axis by axis
Execution1 vs 1
Same score on execution - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Akalabeth: World of Doom
Turn-based keypresses carry no physical demand
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Turn-based menus only
Reads0 vs 0
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Akalabeth: World of Doom
Monsters follow primitive fixed behaviour
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Scripted enemies on both routes
Variance4 vs 4
Same score on variance - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Akalabeth: World of Doom
Dungeon generation and stat rolls inject early-CRPG randomness
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Hit RNG plus dungeon encounters
Optimization6 vs 7
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia leans a little harder on optimization, though the gap is small.
Akalabeth: World of Doom
Stat management and grinding efficiency decide survival
Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Dual-army routing and class promotions
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.